Welcome to Synaptic Soup

Synaptic Soup is a developer of videogames and videogames’ technology. The company is dedicated to bringing the highest quality games to the mass market and the best middleware to the development community.

It is with a sad heart that we announce that, due to the current economic climate, Synaptic Soup has been forced to close its doors for the last time.

Cipher Under New ManagementCustomers using Cipher will be pleased to know that this leading edge game engine is now under new management and will continue to be supported and developed by its new owner. A full source code license now costs only $100. All enquiries regarding Cipher should now be sent to www.cipherengine.com.

Name Changes for Cipher Licenses8 November, 2002

In line with the recent adjustments to Cipher’s licensing terms, we've renamed the various licensing options:

An updated version of Cipher's evaluation kit has now been released that includes a brand new animation sample. The sample demonstrates some of the capabilities of Cipher's Advanced Animation System. Cipher's powerful skinning system allows artists to create characters with more detail than ever before and an unlimited number of bones means that even facial animation and moving hair are possible.

A new movie showing off some of the capabilities of Cipher is now available for downloading or viewing. It shows a player running around an FPS environment, and demonstrates Cipher's ability to display highly detailed environments, very high resolution textures, stunning lighting, real time shadowing, shaders and particle effects.

Cipher 1.3 Introduces Visual Tools16 September, 2002

The latest version of Cipher, our leading middleware solution, has been released. Cipher 1.3 introduces a range of new features, principal of which is its unique suite of Visual Tools. Aimed at empowering artists by allowing simple and intuitive access to the powerful features of Cipher, version 1.3 sees artists given unprecedented flexibility to define the look and behaviour of content for games and real-time applications.

Shader Designer and Particle Designer lie at the core of Cipher 1.3's range of Visual Tools. Artists can interactively change parameters and see the results in real time, giving them the capability to explore the creative effects possible using this new technology. For the first time shader based graphics effects can be designed, created and edited by artists, all interactively inside an easy to use application.

In addition to interactive editing, Cipher's Visual Tools also act as powerful level, model and animation preview tools. Artists can export models from 3ds max and check how they will look in the game without having to wait for a programmer. Since the tools makes full use of Cipher's state of the art rendering technology, the models will look exactly as they will in the final game, with all shader effects in place.

Cipher's Visual Tools demonstrate Synaptic Soup's continued commitment to increase game developers' productivity and reduce costs and time to market by empowering artists and freeing up programmers to concentrate on the game.

Cipher's powerful shader system allows developers to create some of the most impressive visual effects in the industry, and it is about to get even easier. In keeping with Synaptic Soup's goal of giving more power to the content creators, we are soon to release a visual Shader Designer, which allows artists to create stunning visual effects using a simple graphical user interface.

Karl Wickens, Art Director at Synaptic Soup said "Using Cipher's shader language, it has always been possible to create amazing effects for our games, but the Shader Designer allows us to be far more creative than before by making it so easy to experiment and adjust effects interactively."

Leading graphics chip manufacturer 3Dlabs has licensed Cipher to explore the possibilities of its developing hardware. Cipher's ease of use plus scalable and cutting edge features allow 3Dlabs to rapidly prototype demos and test environments to maximise the gaming potential of their latest hardware.

Tim Lewis, Marketing Director for 3Dlabs commented: "Cipher has proved to be a powerful and flexible development solution which is allowing us to quickly and easily explore the potential of our current and next generation gaming hardware."

Alternatum Studios has chosen Cipher for their latest project, saving them many months of effort and allowing them to focus on gameplay and artwork rather than underlying technology. Cipher's support for the Karma Physics library has also meant they have been able to quickly add realistic physics to their game vehicles. We're happy to report that this has allowed them to start approaching publishing partners far quicker than they originally intended and we wish them every success as they begin to do this.

Alternatum Studios' Development Director, Hasraf Dulull, commenting recently on their decision to use Cipher, said "We spent months looking and evaluating different middleware tools and technology to power our game and we found that Cipher met all of our needs. It's ease of use, adaptability, clear documentation, support and powerful features make it artist and designer friendly, while our programmers are free to concentrate on the core game code."

Octagon Entertainment has signed a representation agreement with Synaptic Soup to find worldwide publishing for the arcade-style racing game Crazy Car Championship, currently in development for two next-gen consoles.

Crazy Car Championship revives combat racing by blending aggressive karting with sci-fi racing and RPG customization elements. Described as "Jules Verne meets Flash Gordon in The Cannonball Run," Crazy Car Championship offers over 18 power-ups and 21 upgradeable components, nine tracks and seven cups. Players compete in a series of races and score cash to create tailor-made hybrid vehicles inspired by the Steam, Atomic and Space Ages. Drivers can enter any vehicle they can afford to build, be it a steam-powered hovercraft or a quantum-driven hot-rod on caterpillar tracks. Success is determined by players' abilities to battle for the right power-ups and deploy them strategically.

Synaptic Soup's multi-format Cipher engine maximizes the gameplay experience in Crazy Car Championship by way of per pixel lighting, volumetric shadows and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. Players can compete with Adaptive AI in single player mode or play via multiplayer split screen.

Jerod Kirby is the Octagon agent who signed Synaptic Soup as a client. "Synaptic Soup is a great team to work with and we are delighted to be representing Crazy Car Championship," he said.

Vince Farquharson, Development Director for Synaptic Soup commented "Octagon has a reputation for representing outstanding games and we're proud to have Crazy Car Championship join them."